Felhound as a Dark Pact pet?

[nysalor]

Now that Blizz has added Improved Felhound to the Affliction tree, are Affliction locks supposed to abandon the imp and adopt the felhound as the pet of choice?

I have been trying to figure this out and I am still confused. Here are the facts:

--Imp's mana regeneration has been raised to 200%

--Imp. Felhound gains 50%/100% mana equivalent to the damage done by Shadow Bite

Does this mean we will need Imp. Felhound to DP with the felhound? Since non-FG pets are relatively fragile, why bother using the pup in combat?

Just a few thoughts....

nys

[Pernicious]

It remains to be seen exactly what the Imp. Felhound talent and the Shadow Bite ability really do for the pet. If Shadow Bite doesn't do much damage or has too long a CD, then the hound will not gain much mana back for it. and between using the pet's abilities as well as draining its mana for our own, it may only be good for situations where you can kill everything before your both oom.

Otherwise, with the pet's regen boost, you can probably never run out of mana with DP (i tend to drain it good, after a long round of attacks currently) or you can use DP while the imp is blasting away with its firebolt at the same time without fear of running oom.

I'd like to hear from someone in the Beta that can give us the skinny on all that.

[Ryltar]

That would be some lovely data.

I second Pern's request.

[doogless]

Shadow Bite is broken right now, it doesn't get the % bonus for the number of DoTs on the target, so the Fel Hunter loses mana on each Shadow Bite. Once that gets fixed, Imp Felhunter should server as mana regen for the pet (unless I can't do math).

[Barkle]

Looks like Blizz is trying to get the minions out of the pigeon holes they are in now. Currently, we have: Felguard is the DPS pet. Felhunter is the PvP pet. Imp for Blood Pact or mana battery. Succy if you need to Seduce something, otherwise it gets sac'd. Does anyone use a pet other than these? I'm sure there are some.

Fel Intelligence: Increases total Intellect and Spirit of party and raid members by 3%. Imp Felhunter increases this by 2%

Shadow Bite: Bite the enemy, causing 98 to 138 Shadow damage plus an additional 5% damage for each of your damage over time effects on the target. So, if you have Corruption, Siphon Life and Unstable Affliction going, thats an additional 15%, for 112 to 158. Not a lot of damage. How will this be affected by the warlocks spell power is the question. If, say 15% of your shadow damage is added to this, then if you have 1000 shadow damage you would be adding 150 damage to make it 262 to 308. Not bad. 6 second cooldown. So, maybe 225 MP5 with this? Need to see how it works.

For grinding/leveling, as Affliction I have Siphon LIfe, so life tapping doesn't cost me much. I can tap, and get my life back in 10 seconds anyway. The Imp Felhunter Shadow Bite mana return looks to keep the Felhunter supplied with mana for himself, more than for Dark Pact. I can't see the Felhunter competing with the Imp for mana battery duty, even with these buffs.

[doogless]

At 77 with 1300ish +shadow damage, my Felhunter Shadow Bites for around 200 (and that's with the spell being broken and not getting the % boost from DoTs on the target). Additionally, it's shadow damage, so it will get a boost from CoE, Shadow Weaving, and Misery.

[3v1lkr0w]

I agree with Barkle. I'm not in beta *tear* but Imp Felhound seems to be used to provide the Felhound with a 'steadyish' supply of mana, I can not see 200-300 mana every 6 secs being more than 200% Imp mana regen. You gotta think the Imp wont be casting 99% of the time, so he will get the full 200% mana, but the Felhound is constantly casting spells, and unless I'm mistaken mana doesn't increase unless there is 6 secs of non-casting. Thats how I see it.

-Az-

[vosfihalo]

IMO, I think it's becoming more situational. Remember the importance spirit will be now playing on spellcasters, so the buff will be quite nice. Shadowbite also looks like it could help the Felpup be a nifty little dpser, along with our regular round of DOTs. It might not have the mana regen as impsy, but it would serve me better for grinding and trash mobs where there's more room for Life Tapping . It would also be my pet of choice for pvp.

It will probably be better to use the imp during longer boss fights for the stamina buff as well as the constant mana pool for Dark Pact to avoid life tapping, since you probably will want to keep as much health as you can.

[Pernicious]

Originally Posted by Barkle

Looks like Blizz is trying to get the minions out of the pigeon holes they are in now. Currently, we have: Felguard is the DPS pet. Felhunter is the PvP pet. Imp for Blood Pact or mana battery. Succy if you need to Seduce something, otherwise it gets sac'd. Does anyone use a pet other than these? I'm sure there are some.

You forgot the VW as the Sac for shield just before the Arena Match starts pet.

[MGChongbro]

as far as dark pacting yer i mean your demon buddy is concerned IMP IS IT.
now that that is out. im reading about the fel puppy having an imp. added to it(no pun intended). the fel puppy's imp is a gain in mana dependent on shadow bite. the only thing this will do is allow us afflict lockes dark pact the fel puppy a little moore. Great after our puppy gets thier imp. what do you know. Fer' i mean for me this prolly will not affect my choice of summoning imp or imp.Fel-puppy during arena prep. Imp fer the mana battery and fel-puppy fer the endurance battle vs healer. improved fel-puppy well we'll prolly get one moore dark pact in before running out of mana then before the fel-puppy was improved, IDK maybe 2 or 3